AL 102, Flight of Lightning
Lightning & Urth Velma agreed to give us supplies to preserve the goblin hand after we returned from our current adventure. We set out while it was still choppy, so when I requested the eye to open the way for us, I was rapidly swept up in the storm and thrashed hither and thither. We did remember to tie ourselves together, but we were still having trouble keeping our footing - only Ulfgar stood strong with his impressive Dwarven boots. Eventually he leapt into the air joining us in the massive storm. We were swirling around in the storm - the serpents were visible. We pulled ourselves together and looked upward. Each serpent seemed to disappear in a flash of lightning once in a while and appear at a distance again as though they were somehow dematerializing into light while teleporting forward. We had a few failures with the kite structure Ulfgar had thought to bring along since we had told him of our previous experience with the storm, but we eventually latched on to a piece of one serpent's tail. It was about the size of a town... Ulfgar decided that we should try to approach its head and talk to it and I didn't disagree. After all, if it is not something that looks like you can vanquish and command, it is best to open channels of communication before you are vanquished, is it not? Just as we mounted it, our hair stood on end, we felt as though we were somehow flattened into one dimension and we jolted forward at breakneck speed. We RODE THE LIGHTNING! After the flash was a brief moment of being completely disoriented. Even without being disoriented, the storms made it so it was a struggle to remain upright, much less move forward. We dubbed our mount "the serpent Urth" - because it felt a stable in a storm as... well... the Earth. I had been floating above when I tried to send the great beast a message but the monk and sk had pulled me back just in time for another lightning bolt forward. Ulfgar momentarily lost his footing, but managed to use the lack of gravity leapfrog to the front of the line. He attempted to communicate by saying, 'Hi there, Friend!' This did not receive a response. Being a bard of some measure of tact, I said, with as much charm and reverence as I could muster 'Greetings, Oh exalted one! We are in awe of your powers and wish to know more about your realm' Hoping to use the ancient art of name-dropping in attempt to elicit a response I furthered, 'Do you know Kamdur, oh wise being? I have a scale from Kamdur in my possession. We are adventurers by trade and would be most happy to procure a trinket or some treasure you might want to possess from his lair if you so desire.' The image of an obsidian staff appeared in front of my mind's eye. Duly noting the leverage we had achieved, I negotiate a trade - our undying friendship and the obsidian staff for a sliver of wood. I suspected that this serpent might be the Storm Serpent mentioned in the ancient scroll we had retrieved - Contorted Visage of Dessert and Snow . It was very evident that this serpent was in relative control of the storm because after this negotiation, the storm calmed, the creature moved deliberately toward the eye of the storm and the silence around us was a warm blanket of cozy peace. Ulfgar whipped his kite blanket around Urth's neck so we would be able to identify him in the future. Before I could ask it much more, it delivered us into the eye of the storm and 'flashported' away. Where we landed it appeared to be storming, but just a regular summer storm. A burst of lightning landed with a crack less than 100 feet away. We had just witnessed the start of a forest fire, on a mountainside with sparse vegetation and conifer trees. Down at the bottom was a valley of sorts and up the mountain we could see smoke. This was not the snowy mountain that was the giant outpost. We were about a third of the way up the mountain from the valley. The three of us run to the tree and chop it down and salvage some of the wood, and were able to gather a couple of bundles. One component down, eleven to go... We then pitched tents and establish camp for short rest.